I FINALLY saw the Martian

[autumnalequinox]

I'm a bit late to the party I know.   

 

I do love how I irritated my partner by yelling at the screen at the end:  Why doesn't the Ares just squirt some RCS propellent for that little delta-v change!?!  And all the "I understood everything they said."  Partner:  "I didn't".  moments.

I'm sure many agree it was a great movie.  Because it was.  I love all the Kerbaly solutions to very Kerbal problems.  When the first Iris probe launch blew up I said:  "Yeah, that's happened to me before.  I can really feel for them.  Nothing like an unbalanced payload and your rocket shaking apart long after hitting max Q."  Then I have to explain what max Q is.  Hehe.

I was probably the wrong person to watch this movie with.

[p1t1o]

Great movie.

Loved all of it except for one bit. When they blew the airlock to vent the atmosphere...and it pretty seriously smashed up the interior of their ship I was like "AAAAAWWW after all that, and succeeding against all odds, now they have to journey home in a banged up wreck. That will SO not be relaxing!"

And would that be a serious loss of breathing gas? I have no idea about these sorts of amounts/volumes/requirements for a real(ish) ship.

[KAL 9000]

Me too. I think everyone in the theater gave me a weird look after it was over.

[autumnalequinox]

5 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

Great movie.

Loved all of it except for one bit. When they blew the airlock to vent the atmosphere...and it pretty seriously smashed up the interior of their ship I was like "AAAAAWWW after all that, and succeeding against all odds, now they have to journey home in a banged up wreck. That will SO not be relaxing!"

And would that be a serious loss of breathing gas? I have no idea about these sorts of amounts/volumes/requirements for a real(ish) ship.

HA!  I said the same thing.  I was like "They are now confined to like a tiny volume of the ship for an extra half a year and have to do soooo much damage control.  That's gotta suck."

I admit I did enjoy the realistic physics when Mark poked a hole in his suit.  I mean he spiraled bad (center of mass FTW).  After he grabbed the tether I kept screaming:  "Close your hand Mark!  Omg you are going to spin and spin and wrap each other up like mummies in that tether!"

 

6 minutes ago, KAL 9000 said:

Me too. I think everyone in the theater gave me a weird look after it was over.

This is why I'm glad I watched the movie at home

 

[p1t1o]

And they had such a nice lounge area...

[KAL 9000]

1 hour ago, autumnalequinox said:

HA!  I said the same thing.  I was like "They are now confined to like a tiny volume of the ship for an extra half a year and have to do soooo much damage control.  That's gotta suck."

I admit I did enjoy the realistic physics when Mark poked a hole in his suit.  I mean he spiraled bad (center of mass FTW).  After he grabbed the tether I kept screaming:  "Close your hand Mark!  Omg you are going to spin and spin and wrap each other up like mummies in that tether!"

 

This is why I'm glad I watched the movie at home

 

Well, the book says that Hermes has enough spare air to completely repressurize twice, and I'm assuming they close the inner door of the VAL, so they should be fine.

[Columbia]

1 hour ago, p1t1o said:

Great movie.

Loved all of it except for one bit. When they blew the airlock to vent the atmosphere...and it pretty seriously smashed up the interior of their ship I was like "AAAAAWWW after all that, and succeeding against all odds, now they have to journey home in a banged up wreck. That will SO not be relaxing!"

And would that be a serious loss of breathing gas? I have no idea about these sorts of amounts/volumes/requirements for a real(ish) ship.

From the book:

"Hermes had ehougy spare air to refill the ship two more times if needed. It'd be a pretty [redacted]y long range ship if it couldn't recover from a decompression."

So yeah, they should be fine.

It's alright, I started reading the book last January, finished it in a few days (it's damn good) and saatched the movie on a plane. 

I have to admit, the movie was really nice, but it missed a few important plot elements, and the book really explains everything further. I'd highly recommend it if you're a fan of the movie, too.

[p1t1o]

7 minutes ago, Columbia said:

I'd highly recommend it if you're a fan of the movie, too.

Loaded it onto my kindle last week

 

Glad to hear they didn't have to spend the trip home stuck in whatever cupboard they were in

 

[T-Bouw]

My girlfriend didn't understand everything, but she sure did like the jokes.

I, on the other hand, had to keep myself from wanting to explain everything.

In the end we enjoyed ourselves watching this. Good movie!

[cubinator]

The most important thing I think the movie missed from the book was that Watney used a sextant to navigate using the movement of Phobos. The movie just showed him driving along like he knew where he was going.

[Spaceception]

6 minutes ago, cubinator said:

The most important thing I think the movie missed from the book was that Watney used a sextant to navigate using the movement of Phobos. The movie just showed him driving along like he knew where he was going.

They probably thought that even a layman might try to call BS if they did that, which is  sorta smart, as it did sound kinda BS when I read it, 'till he explained it, but even then, they're a layman, even with an explanation, they may still call BS, even if it were scientifically possible..

[Andem]

There were only two things that really irked me in the movie: Watney never loses comms a second time, and they removed the entire second dust storm from the film.

[Kerbalstar]

2 hours ago, Andem said:

There were only two things that really irked me in the movie: Watney never loses comms a second time, and they removed the entire second dust storm from the film.

Yes and yes and that in the book he DID NOT FLY AROUND LIKE IRON MAN!

[Matuchkin]

1 hour ago, kerbalstar said:

Yes and yes and that in the book he DID NOT FLY AROUND LIKE IRON MAN!

I know, right? I disliked the movie for numerous reasons like that: they didn't emphasize on the sheer time and size of the Sciaparelli trip, they showed that scientist, Rick, in a completely wrong way. They made Watney fly around like Iron-Man just to make the movie "cooler".

Also, the equipment used in the movie, such as the space suits, ships, habs, etc, was over-decorated, and not made to look realistic. Apparently, all the damn suits had robotic female voices instead of normal alarms, and were too thin, sleek, etc. The interiors of the launch pods of the numerous vehicles in the movie, including the MEV, were completely over-glorified (they absolutely did not have to feature dramatic rotating seats).

I came to the movie, expecting the realism that is featured in the actual book. Instead, I got some kind of average, cut-down fantasy, meant for audiences who know next to nothing about such topics.

Edited May 17, 2016 by Matuchkin

[Andem]

2 hours ago, kerbalstar said:

Yes and yes and that in the book he DID NOT FLY AROUND LIKE IRON MAN!

Well, I figured that dredging up those memories could cause infuriation...

[Matuchkin]

6 minutes ago, Andem said:

Well, I figured that dredging up those memories could cause infuriation...

Well not really. I was going to rant anyway.

[Kerbalstar]

45 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

Snip.

I agree. The movie was not very realistic.

[kerbiloid]

Quote

Hermes had ehougy spare air to refill the ship two more times if needed.

Say, its living volume is 100 m³/human. Density 1.2 kg/m³. So, "refill the ship" means ~1 tonne of air.
Air molecules speed ~300 m/s, so ISP = 30 s. So, dV using their air amount ~ several cm/s.
This means that Hermes was flying in the absolutely correct and desired direction - right into Watney's boat, just their navigation calculation was wrong (not surprised).

So, looks like they were just panicking for nothing. lost a half of their air store, blew up a half of ship -
only because Lewis didn't know how to use sextant, while Vogel had a dream of childhood to blow up a space cruiser.

On 16.05.2016 at 5:46 PM, p1t1o said:

it pretty seriously smashed up the interior of their ship I was like "AAAAAWWW after all that, and succeeding against all odds, now they have to journey home in a banged up wreck. That will SO not be relaxing!

No problem. Of course, they had squandered all potatoes on Mars, but happily Johanssen had squirreled a paper cone of peanuts. Watney will coach them what to do.

Edited May 18, 2016 by kerbiloid

[Columbia]

I was trying to tolerate the inaccuracies of the movie (lost comms with Pathfinder, dust storm, rover flipping) were all missed, but the Iron Man part was where I was so annoyed seeing.

Watney would have just spun uncontrollably if he tried that, perhaps makng the whole thing eve worse. The thrust vector didn't point to through the center of mass.

It's Beck that rescued Watney, Watney was left on Sol 6 -- not 18, Vincent Kapoor =/= Venkat Kapoor, and again, missed so many plot elements. And as said, the costumes and the look of the Hab inside was too decorated. 

It nailed the other plot elements though.

[SinBad]

I disliked that they messed up the rover. In the book it was 2 rovers, the second rigged as a trailer with all the life support inside its crew compartment. The movie has this little flatbed trailer instead. And the trouble of getting down crater walls (intentionally vague to avoid book spoilers)

And the agriculture was wrong. And the storm duration. And when they noticed he was alive.

How hard is it to just take a great book and turn it into a movie? Let the author write the screen play and keep studio execs far away from the creative process.

It could have worse though, the explosive decompresions could have been Baysplosive(tm) decompessions.

/rant

Ok, the movie was good as far as movies go. Compared to the book it was dumbed down and prettied up for the general public.

[Superfluous J]

My only real problem was the space pirate thing. If Watney never lost comms the 2nd time, he DID have permission to board the other Ares ship.

The whole Iron Man thing was because in a movie you can't have the main character totally completely passive for the final, climactic 20 minutes. And for what they had they did it well. It thematically fit the entire rest of the movie (and the book). Over and over Watney gets an idea, tries it, fails, tries it again using what he learned, and succeeds. They didn't have time to detail it during the rescue* but they did show exactly that happening.

*Sure, it's not exactly possible but neither is dodging a thousand bullets and nobody has problems with every other movie hero doing just that, in every movie ever**
**Hyperbole

[EliasDanger]

On ‎5‎/‎17‎/‎2016 at 6:33 PM, kerbalstar said:

I agree. The movie was not very realistic.

No one would have watched it if it was realistic, cuz then poor Mark Watney would have died of radiation poisioning before anyone had a chance to rescue him. Probably not any clever excuse for that not happening in the book either.

Edited May 18, 2016 by EliasDanger

[TheKosanianMethod]

12 hours ago, SinBad said:

I disliked that they messed up the rover. In the book it was 2 rovers, the second rigged as a trailer with all the life support inside its crew compartment. The movie has this little flatbed trailer instead. And the trouble of getting down crater walls (intentionally vague to avoid book spoilers)

And the agriculture was wrong. And the storm duration. And when they noticed he was alive.

How hard is it to just take a great book and turn it into a movie? Let the author write the screen play and keep studio execs far away from the creative process.

It could have worse though, the explosive decompresions could have been Baysplosive(tm) decompessions.

/rant

Ok, the movie was good as far as movies go. Compared to the book it was dumbed down and prettied up for the general public.

What's the point of seeing the movie when you know EXACTLY what's going to happen? While yes, the movie skipped a few things, and the book was better, I don't want to watch a movie that's a copy-and-paste of a book. My attention span would make me go insane (but I already saw this part... oooh, look, more popcorn!)

[SinBad]

Why watch apollo 13 or titanic then? You know how its going to end. To me, a faithfull film adaption gives the author the opportunity to enhance the story telling by providing the audience with visuals, audio and music. It also brings the work to a wider audience as there are still so many people who dont like to read. My main complaint is when the authors original work is compremised by some marketing guy who decides that the target audience isnt smart enough to wrap their heads around the details, or that the original work wasnt exciting enough. Thats when things get dumbed down and hyped up. Also where the majority of inaccuracies get thrown in. The hobbit movie gave us an extra female elf for eye candy and gender equality (not mutually exclusive after all?) The martian movie gave us bad science and pointless heroics (difficult eva orbital capture? Better let the commander do it instead of the eva specialist!) When the original story had good science (not great) and lots of heroics already, just not from an angsty guilt laden BDH.

[autumnalequinox]

All in all, you have to give Hollywood some props for not seriously dumbing it down.  I mean after Gravity and Interstellar this may be as good as it gets these days.

 

I am going to read the book now (I almost picked it up a long time ago and regret it now).